Tag Archives: history

If one needed any proof that the United States, and a good deal of the rest of the world has simply abandoned any pretense of being serious, the top stories of today and a few days prior are convincing proof.

Last night, the story broke that “Jihadi” John, the masked killer of at least five in Iraq and or Syria had been identified. Along with this came a presser by CAGE, a “human rights” organization in the UK, which attempted to blame the nation’s security services for “radicalizing” Mohammed Emwazi, who

Cage directer Asim Qureshi in a diptych with the “beautiful young man” who went on to practice halal butchery on humans. Qureshi’s zabiba(prayer bump) should be a dead giveaway that he’s just another of the lying Islamic shills to whom Westerners give so much credence. The Qureshi were the tribe of the “Prophet” Muhammad, and half the swinging dicks in Muhammad land claim to be descended from them. Liars all.

turned out to be a degreed computer programmer raised in comfortable circumstances. A week before, the Obama administration had re-floated the idea that “violent extremists” are fueled by poverty and exclusion, a moronic, Marxist inspired, and easily debunked trope that has been around since Dubya.

Since I was a child, I’ve loved antiquity. However, I remember many of my classmates hating those museum field trips. This, though, is a bit much

ISIS took a break from releasing snuff films to putting out a video of the lads having a blast smashing statues from Ancient Assyria.

Nothing to do with Islam, of course. Bangladeshi-American atheist blogger Avijit Roy’s wife, Rafida Ahmed Banna, who survived, but lost a finger.

In Dhaka, a Bangladeshi atheist blogger, who also held American citizenship, was hacked to death on the street, with his wife also attacked but surviving. While the White house had nothing to say, a reporter did manage to coax a statement out of Jen Psaki, who was careful to note that at this point the attackers’ motive is unknown.

U.S. State Department spokes-bimbo, Jen Psaki. While lacking empirical evidence, I’d say she’s a genuine ginger, and I bet those hooters are real as well, unlike anything that comes out of her mouth.

The United States government, with zombie FDR nodding approval, decided to regulate the internet under a statute written in 1933. All data packets are equal. Down the road, some will be more equal than others. On the BBC, of all places, a commenter shook his head and said the US government has decided it wants the internet or free. Someone on state owned British media gets economics better than Mr. Obama.

In the same category of unaccountable Federal agencies we have the BATF talking about banning ammunition for the AR-15, a big scary looking rifle that anti-gun legislators have been unable to touch. It’s basically a .22, well .223.

In the United States Congress, the Republican majority, in its strongest position since the 1920s decides that funding DHS, the security super agency that has yet to catch a terrorist, is more important than keeping its promise to the electorate to fight and defund the President’s unilateral amnesty for illegal immigrants.

The president and functionaries of the regime, I’m sorry, government, natter on about “Climate Change,” (Nee Global Warming; isn’t it nice to see her all grown up?) as a foot of snow falls in Alabama.

In other times, people looked to the heavens for signs and portents of evil days to come.

My necromancer didn’t return my texts.

We have the United Sates, guarantor of the peace for some seven decades, in a constitutional crisis, a centuries old civilization conflict bathing vast areas in blood, the ancient nations of Europe suborned by Islamic fifth columns, and much more than I need go into here.

What is to come?

I have no idea, the best minds of our time are trying to determine the color of THE DRESS.

Readers of these pages will know that I am no supporter of Mr. Obama, but that I had a foreboding he would win. Many of my friends were on board with Messers. Carl Rove, Dick Morris, Michael Barone and other pundits, convinced that Romney would win. After all, no president looking for a second term with the country in similar distress had ever succeeded.

I replied to these pep talks that the country now was not the country then, not even the same country that rejected McCain in 2008.

Paris, 1941. OK, I’m not as despondent as this guy was.

So, I really should not be despondent. But I am.

In 2008, Mr. Obama promised fundamental transformation, and prior to the vote, one could hope that it had not been yet fully accomplished. Now it will be completed.

“This afternoon at the White House, the President met with influential progressives to talk about the importance of preventing a tax increase on middle class families, strengthening our economy and adopting a balanced approach to deficit reduction,” Earnest said in a statement Tuesday.

We have re-elected a President who sees “Progressives” as major players. Of course, he and his staff met with these people earlier in his term, but now there is no reason to dissemble. The fifth columnists and franc tireurs show themselves.

George Meany of the AFL-CIO and many others at 1962 signing of Manpower Training Act

AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka along with Soros funded Moveon.org head Justin Ruben after meeting the President in the White Hoiuse November 13, 2012. Just in case you had any doubt as to who is in charge.

On November 13,The President met with AFL-CIO leader Trumka and Moveon.org at the White house. I’m old enough to remember George Meany, and a time where unions, having purged the radical leftists among them, were pretty solidly at the center of American politics. If Trumka ever watched “On the Waterfront,” he was cheering for the bad guys.

The comment boards are full of hopeful writers who put out their point by point programs for retaking Congress, and then the White House. Others rightly point to the institutions, schools and churches,

The Hollywood Left( which is most of them) never forgave director Elia Kazan for both testifying to communist influence in Tinselstown, and making this film showing the leftist thugs among the longshoremen.

which must be retaken by grassroots action. The entire culture,online pundit Roger L. Simon says,must be retaken. He recommends Youtube. Or something.

And then there is the fight between those who want to dump social issues, and those who would rather see the Republic obliterated before one more fetus is aborted.

Not to mention those who recommend investing in “brass and lead” and can’t wait to shoot leftists. Let’s remember the last scene in 1970 movie “Joe” in which hippie hating Peter Boyle ends up wasting his daughter. Or the Spanish Civil War.

And of course, the United States Military, which, PC as it may have become, still can cream pretty much any fighting force on earth.. And then there is DHS, ramping up local law enforcement firepower.

So, all of this is blather, in my view. A “center right” country could have elected Obama in a fit of inattention, but such a nation could not have reelected him.

Mr. Obama still bridles at being called a socialist, but he need not. When 23% of Republicans have a favorable view of socialism, “progressives” should lick their

WTF? Just WTF!

chops.

23% of Republicans viewing socialism favorably?

Do they know what socialism is? Do they know what Republicans are? Do Republicans know what Republicans are?

And then, there is this ” Americans Aged 18-29 Have A More Favorable Response To Socialism Than To Capitalism.”

Perhaps they will grow out of it, but I wouldn’t bet on it. I doubt many under 50 would have much idea of the references I’ve used here. There are those things, it seems, that have to be learned through experience rather than study.

Something has changed. And perhaps the country that those of us who despise this change mourn, never existed.

If it did, it will not return, and what takes it place will be what it will be.

(Living abroad, I have little cause to think much about American race relations but the coverage of Morgan Freeman’s remarks on CNN September 25 caught my attention. Like millions of Americans,I’ve long been a Freeman fan.)

Morgan Freeman as God: Not as wise as the Almighty, after all.

Given past statements on race, Morgan Freeman taking on the Tea Party is not as predictable as might appear, and is thus deeply disappointing to many. Freeman has played America’s wise grandfather for so long, that many thought that he was that for all of us. His semi-coherent diatribe on Piers Morgan Tonight is just one more, and quite prominent, indicator that post racialism is as far away as ever,

Early in, there is an echo of the Freeman, who in an interview with Mike Wallace in 2009 said the best way to solve the race problem was to stop talking about it, when asked whether he wanted to be perceived as a black actor:

MORGAN: You don’t think the word “black” should now really be used in any context to–

FREEMAN: Not really, you know, it — what use is it? What good does it do? You know, what we’ve almost always done, when you label someone, you know, say for example, while he’s the best Chinese this or he’s the best Latin that or the best black that, nobody ever says the best white anything.

But that doesn’t last.

In his later remarks, Freeman exhibits the same vague unease, but lack of facts, that accompany much Tea Party Criticism. He doesn’t care for Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, but seems unsure of just exactly who the senator is.

MORGAN FREEMAN: Made it(the election of President Obama) worse. Made it worse. Look at, look, the Tea Partiers, who are controlling the Republican Party, stated, and what’s this guy’s name, Mitch O’Connell. Is that his, O’Connell?

.He ascribes this sentiment, but not a statement, to the Minority leader and the Tea Party“…we are going to do whatever we can do to get this black man out of here.”

The interviewer points out that a white Democrat President also had problems with Republicans, to which Freeman can only say “…Clinton, they tried, but still…”

What can one say? Mr. Freeman, it’s politics and this goes on in all election cycles, regardless of party?

Then we get to the money quote:

“Yes. Well, it just shows the weak, dark underside of America… ““…And then it just sort of started turning because these people surfaced like stirring up muddy water.”

Racist Scum

Vicious racist pond scum just waiting to spread.

Sad. I hope, and really don’t doubt, that most Americans are still well disposed to Black people. When people have asked me what I miss about America, I found myself responding, the sound of Spanish, and Black people. Like many white Americans, I can’t say I really know any black people. In the course of my life I’ve only been fairly friendly with a couple, but am in touch with neither anymore.

So many decades after the March on Washington, it is deeply troubling to see these

1963: The March on Washington. The most inspiring event of my lifetime.

controversies go on and on. I’m sure many ,if not most of my generation, had you asked us in the late sixties, would have confidently predicted a post racial America by now.

I have my issues with Black folks, the high crime rate, bloc voting, elevation of charlatans like Sharpton and Jackson to prominence, although in the last instance, one wonders if the white dominated media are the real culprits. Rowdy kids acting out on buses. And yes, a certain hollow feeling when I have strolled unthinkingly and suddenly found myself in a neighborhood that was entirely black.

And then to return to one of those neighborhoods for services at great small businesses. A friendly bar where I could have a beer and a bit of chit chat between work and night classes. A fantastic takeout where the Korean War vet owner presided over amazing smells, and great food that the Asian kids he hired served up with big smiles, as if it were not a a job but just a great big goof. Hot links, and brisket sandwiches, slaw an potato salad. Sweet potato pie if you possibly had any room left.

Compton

I get to the States only occasionally and a few years back, staying with a friend and lifetime resident of largely white West side LA, I remarked that the black people we encountered, working at restaurants, cashiers, salespeople and so on, seemed not only quick at their work, but genuinely outgoing and friendly. Many were young, and casual chats revealed that they were working part time and going to the colleges and universities that abound in West LA. My cynical friend thought that this relaxed interchange between races was due in part to a feeling of solidarity with whites, versus the Latino migration. He had to agree, however, that things seemed to have improved, “It’s not all Compton, anymore,” he said,

A long time back, a different friend was railing against blacks, and my response was, “If they all disappeared one day, you would miss them.“

The first cargo of Africans arrived in Jamestown quite by happenstance, but the trade grew quickly.

Who, after all, is more American than black people? Schoolchildren still learn, as I did, that the first cargo of African arrived In Jamestown in 1619. What wasn’t taught back then was that there were some who were free men from the start.
This certainly beats snooty Mayflower descendants. As the legal importation of Africans for slavery ended in 1803, it’s a safe bet that the ancestry of the average Black American will predate that of many whites.

I make a choice in this post to use the term “Black.” People of my age

The memory of merely seeing the segregated South is indelible; It is not possible to imagine what living there as blacks was truly like.

clearly remember signs saying “No colored,” “No Negros,“ and while these were polite terms at the time, it was easy to understand why Blacks would shed them.

How many remember Jesse Jackson decreeing in a Chicago speech sometime in the 80s that henceforth, Blacks would be called African-Americans? And the Orwellian speed with which the media and academia adopted it?

At the time, and now, it seemed to me that hyphenating this group whose migration, involuntary as it was, predated that of most of the ancestors of their fellow citizens, was insulting, and more importantly, inaccurate. Black Americans are foremost among the very first Americans and their unique history and culture, and their contributions to the nation they inhabit were made here, not in Africa.

Of course, as a white person, I have no “right,” to take a stand on this, but everyday usage indicates that Black is still preferred. After all, W.E. Dubois wrote about “Souls of Black Folks,” not African-Americans. Yet, the term African-American does indicate the distance that many blacks still feel from their country, an estrangement that in some quarters seems to be entrenched, and growing,

The clearest signs are bloc voting, with 95% of Black voters going for President Obama in 2008 and the frenzied, and paranoid stockade mentality many prominent blacks are taking in defending his, at best debatable record as Chief Executive. Take Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick on conservatives and the Tea Party, when commenting on the Freeman CNN Interview:

“I can tell you that it’s clear from the evidence that the ‘Heck with the interest of the common good and whatever we need to do to derail this presidency’ has characterized some if not all of Tea Party behavior in the Congress of the United States, no doubt about it,” Patrick said.

O.J. The Verdict

46% of the electorate did not think electing Obama as President would foster the common good, and after the fact, more have come to the same conclusion. If many more blacks approve of the president’s performance than do whites, is this because they are right, and whites racist? This divide trumps any facts because it is consistently so lopsided. I remember too well the sinking feeling at the conclusion of the Simpson trial, when my black colleagues gave out a shout and fist pumps when the acquittal came in.

If the Tea Party, and conservatives in general, are predominately white, is Governor Debal a racist for criticizing them?

“The governor also described conservative behavior as ‘seditious,’ saying that patriots come together in crisis to work on a solution.”

“Sedition: Conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch. ”

Or even worse: “Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state.
2. Insurrection; rebellion

Yes insurrection , such as the rebellion of the South, the suppression of which resulted in Emancipation.

“The notion that the singular focus of the hard right today is to defeat this president, even if there’s an idea he puts forward to help-that they used to support-is incredibly worrisome to me and a very different political climate, I think, that we’ve been dealing with for a long time,” he said.

The governor does not specify which of the administration’s ideas might be ones
Republicans once approved, but now oppose. Once again, there is nothing particularly remarkable here. It’s called an election, much as Governor Bev Perdue of North Carolina might like to dispense with them.

“Patrick was not the only one to respond to Morgan’s comments. GOP presidential contender Herman Cain had told Fox News that Morgan’s remarks were “short-sighted.”

“Most of the people that are criticizing the Tea Partiers about having a racist element, they have never been to a Tea Party,” Cain said.

“Short sighted,” indeed. This hysteria among the black electorate, that the Tea Party wants to bring back slavery and lynching as Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana and others have said , is more than silly: it is a sad and depressing indication that much of Black America has no memory of its proud history before its open-ended indenture on the Great Society plantation.

“Black History is American history,” Freeman said in a better and very lucid moment in the Wallace Interview. It is indeed, and a proud part of it. I said the same thing in introducing my self to the Black Literature Club, of which I was the sole white member, where I worked in the 90s. ( This was no statement as to my enlightened racial outlook. I like to read, and the stuff these people were doing fit well with some night classes I was taking.) We had lunchtime meetings, read Zora Neale Houston, slave narratives, MLK, and Toni Morrison, who sadly racist that she is, is a wonderful story teller and stylist.

Sojourner Truth

A high point was MLK day, when members brought their scrubbed and dressed up kids, to deliver memorized speeches and sermons of Dr King, Fredrick Doublass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and others, The art of memorization and declamation was alive there, long after being lost in the public schools

Downsizing and brutal hours put an end to the club’s activities, but that was the not the only glimpse I have had into black America where I think something good, decent remains, an older culture in opposition to the underclass rage, one that if revitalized would not only help black America, but the nation as a whole.

One reads of inner city hell hole schools. I did sub in one predominantly Black and Latino High School on the western edge of Phoenix. The first day I had that same trepidation as in entering an unknown black area. Immediately I was flagged down by some big black adults, sitting on a courtyard bench. They were security, ex military mostly, some studying for the police academy exam.

They knew everything that went on. A kid even thinking of acting up got his name called out, and a meek “yes sir” and apology usually followed quickly. They were funny guys and made me welcome at break times. This assignment came after a few weeks at a school in an affluent area, where kids drove their own new SUVs to school. There were a lot of spit wads and backtalk,

It struck me immediately that these kids said “Sir,” and “Mr.”. There was an old fashioned level of courtesy towards adults. Sure ,they acted out, and sometimes it was hard to discipline them because they were so hilarious. Two in particular I remember, Jimmy a gawky kid, Mississippi dark, with a constant smile who simply could not keep still. More than once I had to send him out, but he just went with the same smile. And came back the next day and did it all over again.

Then there was Sheniqua. (Yes, that was the name) a tall Nilotic exotic just a little too aware of her looks, who once flashed me her tummy, and very taut it was. The shorts that barely met dress code requirements were bad enough.

Yet she submitted a highly readable and passionate assessment of her favorite singer, Usher, complete with musicology references and footnotes, making an argument for placing him in the tradition of black jazz and blues singers.

I had much less trouble with these kids than with their far more well off peers in the other side of the valley, Indulging in amateur sociology, looking back at the small business men in San Francisco, the church going book readers in the literature club, the firm but caring security guys and the sassy but bright students at that Phoenix school, did I see an echo of an earlier black America, one that began in the rural South where blacks had no choice but to do for themselves, and which carried over into the urban neighborhoods that people like Bill Cosby fondly remember, before they were destroyed by welfare and redevelopment?

One must take political biographies skeptically, yet a look at people like Herman Cain seems to say that this Black America is still out there. Whether it can prevail against those who would exploit it for political purposes, as they have for so long, is a question that will effect not only the election outcome, but the lives of all Americans. Campaign 2012 will be about many things, but one will be the souls of Black folks.

I wouldn’t expect other than fatuous nonsense from this source. What is disturbing is the many who agree with her. So I put my two cents ( actually around 750 words in four sections due to 250 word limitation per post).

Here it is in its entirety:

I of course expected Ms Huffington to make no mention of Islam in her 9/11 piece, and after scrolling through the first six pages of comments I find it almost completely absent from the the thoughts expressed. One commenter viewing American foreign policy as a “root cause,” mentioned Iran in 1957. I would be rather surprised if Osama Bin Laden had ever heard of Mussadegh, and if he had it would be ludicrous to assume this Sunni Salafist would care about a Shia secularist from the left in Iran. This is typical of the logical gyrations in which some people engage so as to exonerate Islam.

Whatever one thinks of the “Wars to Help Muslims” (Beginning with the Gulf war, I have I opposed all five – count them – other than taking out the Taliban in Afghanistan, which was fumbled) and the growth of the National Security State, these developments have their origins in a total lack of understanding in the US of what Islam is, and how it affects statecraft in nations that profess it.

The absurd lengths to which people will go in order not to mention Islam stuns me at times. Israel, or US foreign policy have nothing to do with the ongoing murder, oppression and violence against Christians and other minorities in parts of Nigeria, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sudan. They have nothing to do with the internecine Muslim violence endemic in Iraq and Afghanistan,and the persecution, suppression and murder of Ahmadis in Indonesia.

One simply has to look at the rest of the world to see that there is no other belief system giving rise to such persistent and high levels of violence, not to mention appalling human development indices, outside the rich Gulf nations, and a general disregard for basic freedoms, most especially manifested in low status for women, and in places, outright gender apartheid. Simple logic dictates that this is no coincidence.

On 9/11 we were attacked by Islam, a renascent Islam fueled by petro-dollars, another term for our money. There have been other such attacks throughout the history of Islam, starting from its base in the Arabian Peninsula, sweeping hence to rapid dominance of the southern Mediterranean littoral and on into Western Europe

Tarik ibn Zayid, Arab conqueror of Spain. Artist's rendition, as no true portraits exist due to Islamic restrictions on depicting living being. He landed at Gibraltar, which is a corruption of Jebel Tarik, "Tarik's Mountain.".

Charles Martel, King of the Franks, who decisively broke Muslim power in France, at the Battle of Tours, 732.

from Africa, and later from Turkey into Southeast Europe . These waves were beaten back, but never has a country or region relinquished Islam voluntarily, or more accurately, has Islam peacefully relinquished territory. The secular experiment of Ataturk in Turkey is at an an end, and Malaysia and Indonesia( where I live) may follow. We are, in a sense, experiencing the Third Jihad. It will be the last.

The_Battle_of_Lepanto_by_Paolo_Veronese

Despite continuing attempts, increasingly from lone actors, and of fairly amateurish nature, the US will most likely not see another 9/11 in my view. This hardly means the danger is past. We must prepare for an Islamic World from the Mediterranean to Southeast Asia that, while chaotic and disunited, will be unified in its hatred of us and our values.

On September 11, 1683 King Jan Sobieski III Of Poland joined battle with the Ottoman Turks to lift the Siege of Venna, begining the roll back of muslim power in Central and Southeastern Europe

One commenter here suggested withdrawing form the region( the Middle East and Afghanistan. I would agree, and extend this withdrawal to ceasing any attempt to reach out to, understand, interface with, or influence developments in the Islamic world. Withdraw, but maintain our guard toward both external and internal threats. This would make as safer, and perhaps afford us the time and resources to heal ourselves.

Finally, I exhort one and all: read the texts of Islam! I sincerely doubt Messers Bush the elder and younger, Clinton or Obama ever have.

September 13: It is noteworthy that the anniversary of the two day battle outside Vienna in 1683, in which the advance of Turkish Muslim power in Central Europe was stopped, is September 11/13. Now we have no captains to fight the crescent, and Europe lies supine, while America slumbers.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the bombing. I had forgotten. Now I know why I chanced, upon a “Yamato,“ yesterday on the Asian Movie channel,. A docudrama of the last battle of the last of the class of the largest battleships ever launched.

Quite gripping, great human interest, and all kinds of cool cgi explosions as the doomed young men fought their ship against a swarm of Douglas Avengers. Of course, some of the sailors had family and lovers in Hiroshima, and there was a post sinking scene of a surviving crewman searching for a loved one among the horrors in a casualty station there.

You’ve all read about Sadako and the paper cranes. With all sympathy for the dead and maimed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the official Japanese construct on the War has more than a waft of victim hood when talking about the defeat. Little mention is made of Operation Olympic, the invasion of the Home Islands that would have sent the allies against an armed populace of all ages, ready to die for their parts in the thousand year narrative of Yamato, the Sun descended emperor.. Who remembers? When was the last time you saw a “Pearl Harbor Survivor“ license plate?

So what about 9/11. Jihad? And dead SEALS in Afghanistan? The issue is historical memory, collective amnesia,, altered, and even, stolen narratives,..

Nearly ten years ago a group of young men, citizens of a putative ally, legally present in our country, in order to further their studies, killed more than three thousand of our brothers and sisters. They did it in the name of Islam and they shouted Alllahu Akbar as they entered physical, but certainly not political, cultural and historical oblivion.

Our country, culture, and national psyche have been forever changed. Yet, how many really remember? I haven’t checked, but I wouldn’t be surprised if once again, the Chrysler building is illuminated green for Ramadan, Ten years ago, how many Americans had heard of Ramadan? Now the president gives official greetings replete with Arabic interjections, and praise for non existent Muslim contributions( really, Nobel prize winners? I come up with one, in Chemistry: Ahamad Zewail, an American Egyptian dual national, who, parenthetically, has interesting things to say about the impact of “traditional culture“ on scientific enquiry)

In his praise of Islamic charity, the president neglects to mention that such charity is enjoined by Islamic doctrine to help only fellow Muslims,. “Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings…”

One only has the to consult the roster of OIC members to see a roll of appalling human rights violators, and abysmally low HDI scores. Protocols and style manuals within USG prohibit the use of “Muslim”, Islamic” and “terrorist” in the same sentence A feel good narrative to scare off demons and night terrors.

The president only continues what George W. Bush “Islam is a Religion of peace” began. Imagine a narrative of World War Two with the Japanese and Germans absent.

From Minnesota, young, sometimes Americans born, Somali men travel to Somalia to find salvation and meaning in another chapter of a 1500 year old narrative of conquest and subjugation, eschewing the old narrative of assimilation and success in America,.

The daily bombings, church burnings(Nigeria: have you heard of Boko Haram?) and shootings and beheadings (Thailand: have you heard anything of the brutal assault on Buddhists in the south of this world beloved tourist playground?) are reported as “religious clashes( the BBC and Reuters are particularly egregious in this respect) Agenda-tweaked narratives. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, daily killings and executions as muslims die for other muslims’ reading of Muhammed‘s narrative.

Last week, between one and two hundred thousand Islamists shouting for a shariah state( Of course, by now, you know what shariah means) chased the last face bookers from Tharir square in Cairo. “The Arab Spring” a vanished, and conveniently no longer cited narrative.

. And there is the enormous cost of “security.” Consider: had there been no 9/11, there would certainly have been no Afghanistan War, and perhaps Bush and Blair would have been at least somewhat circumspect about intervention in Iraq.

And no TSA. These are not the source of all our fiscal woes, but eliminate them from the picture and the balance sheet is much improved. An alternate universe narrative of a much happier non-possibility

Afghanistan: Our forces die for what: a “democratic state” fashioned on paper by “ western experts” resulting in a sharia constitution( as in Iraq) where none existed before. A impossible utopian narrative, as are all such,

Our servicewomen go veiled ( see ISAF website) and combat forces work under suicidal rules of engagement. Google “heroic/courageous restraint.” We went to that brutal land and graveyard of countless armies over the centuries to take revenge on the mastermind of 9/11, and on those who sheltered him. And stay to “build a nation. An altered narrative.

And one that might be termed post modern in its utter lack of meaning, but which can also be seen as a very old form: Unthinking hubris, and endless nemesis.

And today, Maureen Dowd writes in the NYT:

When the president is asked what it felt like to kill Osama, he’s low-key and modest, even though he personally refocused the mission to capture the 9/11 architect after W. dropped the ball.

He has told people what a thrill it was to meet SEAL Team 6 — and the dog Cairo — which pulled off the hit, noting that the men looked less young and fearsome than he expected, and more like guys working at Home Depot.

But while Obama takes the high road, his aides have made sure there are proxies to exuberantly brag on him.

The White House clearly blessed the dramatic reconstruction of the mission by Nicholas Schmidle in The New Yorker — so vividly descriptive of the SEALS’ looks, quotes and thoughts that Schmidle had to clarify after the piece was published that he had not actually talked to any of them.

“I’ll just say that the 23 SEALs on the mission that evening were not the only ones who were listening to their radio communications,” Schmidle said, answering readers’ questions in a live chat, after taking flak for leaving some with the impression that he had interviewed the heroes when he wrote in his account that it was based on “some of their recollections.”

The White House is also counting on the Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal big-screen version of the killing of bin Laden to counter Obama’s growing reputation as ineffectual.

The Sony film by the Oscar-winning pair who made “The Hurt Locker” will no doubt reflect the president’s cool, gutsy decision against shaky odds. Just as Obamaland was hoping, the movie is scheduled to open on Oct. 12, 2012 — perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost to a campaign that has grown tougher.

The moviemakers are getting top-level access to the most classified mission in history from an administration that has tried to throw more people in jail for leaking classified information than the Bush administration.

It was clear that the White House had outsourced the job of manning up the president’s image to Hollywood when Boal got welcomed to the upper echelons of the White House and the Pentagon and showed up recently — to the surprise of some military officers — at a CIA ceremony celebrating the hero SEALs.

Just like W., Obama is going for that “Mission Accomplished” glow (without the suggestive harness). At least in this president’s case, though, something has been accomplished.

.

Ms Dowd makes some unsupported but hardly unbelievable assertions here, and as elsewhere in the article she included the obligatory pokes at GWB, one is inclined to give her a hearing.

So, here, an appropriated narrative, and perhaps the “October Surprise” the blogosphere anticipates, but not the expected attack on Iran.

No sooner did the story break than the conspiracy lovers were at work. A black op to get rid of the witnesses to an operation that did not take out Osama, who “we all ( in some quarters ) know” had been dead for years, See “I’m not into conspiracy theories” Ann Barnhart.

Of course, they had made the same mistake I did in skimming the story: some of the dead SEALS were in the same unit, but were not the same people. Misunderstood narrative

Thus, it is well to consider the men of the Enola gay, and the SEALS down in Afghanistan, and be grateful for their true and unchanging.narratives of honor courage and service,

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